In Sri Lanka, no peace dividend for press

The end of Sri Lanka’s war with Tamil rebels has not eased repression of independent media. Journalists still face violence, harassment, and detention. Will President Rajapaksa use his victories on the battlefield and in the polling booth to reunite the nation and restore free expression? A CPJ Special Report by Bob Dietz and Robert Mahoney

Posted May 19, 2010

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka
Sandhya Eknelygoda remembers saying goodbye to her
journalist husband at 7:30 a.m. on January 24 as he left to cover the final
campaigning in Sri Lanka’s presidential election. She has not heard from him
since.

At the family home in a distant Colombo suburb, Sandhya rubs
her hands as she recounts her attempts to penetrate a police bureaucracy that
appears to be in no hurry to investigate the disappearance of Prageeth
Eknelygoda, a political reporter and cartoonist for the
pro-opposition news Web site Lanka
eNews. Sandhya went to her local police station to report Eknelygoda's disappearance on the night he failed to return home, but police
refused to open a case, saying they thought his disappearance was a publicity
stunt. They finally accepted her complaint two weeks later—but when she visited
the station soon after to ask for a copy, police told her they had lost the logbook
in which it had been entered.

“In the end, the government must take responsibility for
this investigation,” she told CPJ through an interpreter. National Police
spokesman Prisantha Jayakody told CPJ the case has been transferred from local
police to the Colombo Crimes Division but no witnesses or suspects had been
questioned.

Eknelygoda’s disappearance sent a chill through an already
traumatized Sri Lankan press corps. If the end of the 26-year war with Tamil
secessionists in May 2009 had raised hopes that the government of President
Mahinda Rajapaksa would relax its grip on the media, such optimism had nearly
evaporated by the time of the bitterly divisive presidential campaign.
Rajapaksa beat back a challenge from his former ally, Sarath Fonseka, the army
general who crushed the rebels, in the January 26 presidential election. But
the strength of Fonseka’s showing among Rajapaksa’s Sinhalese base rattled the
administration.

Fonseka was arrested after the election on charges of participating in politics
while in uniform, and media outlets that supported him, such as Lanka eNews, came under threat,
according to a wide array of journalists, political analysts, and diplomats
interviewed by CPJ.

Journalists described working in a climate of fear and
intimidation. Many said they hold back from publishing stories that could
embarrass Rajapaksa or members of his family who also hold public office. They
assume their phones and e-mail are tapped. When exchanging e-mails with CPJ about
a possible meeting, for example, one prominent journalist said any encounter “would
need to be VERY well planned. Take NO chances. Everything is being monitored.”

Under attack, many seek exile

Fearing government retribution, many of those interviewed
asked to have their identities protected. One staffer at Sirasa TV, a station that
had its master control room wiped out by a bomb in 2009, described a “continuous
undertone of threat. There is always a danger and an element of doubt about
safety.” By CPJ’s count, 25 Sri Lankan journalists are now living in exile.
Several more said that they expect to leave if the repression continues.

They can expect little help from local press freedom groups,
which have also have come under threat. Sunanda Deshapriya, a leader of the Free
Media Movement (FMM), a press support group, is now living in exile in Geneva.
He fled the country in 2009 in fear for his life after being denounced as a
traitor on government Web sites and excoriated on call-in radio shows. FMM
members say they are under constant surveillance and are condemned in the
pro-government media. FMM’s acting spokesman, Sunil Jayasakera, went into
hiding after the presidential election. In the past, the government accused the
group of being paid by the rebels; postwar, it accuses the FMM of illegally
taking money from Western governments and human rights groups.

Among those journalists who have fled is Lanka eNews Editor Sandurwan Senadeera.
In the five years he ran the site, he was often questioned by police but never
detained for a long period and never charged with a crime. He had his newsroom staff
work in groups for safety, and no one was allowed to leave the newsroom alone or
after dark. Shortly before his exile in March, Senadeera considered closing the
Web site’s offices and having everyone work from separate locations. For now,
the site continues to operate under temporary leadership with staff working
from their homes.

“When there was a legal process, I wasn’t worried. I had
done nothing wrong,” Senadeera said when he spoke with CPJ in February. “But
when they grabbed Prageeth
Eknelygoda, then I knew that the world had changed and that period was
over in Sri Lanka. I knew the laws didn’t apply anymore.

“I have three options: abandon the Web site, fight the government,
or get ‘disappeared,’” he said. “I don’t feel defeated, but I do feel fed up.”
A week after making these remarks, Senadeera fled to the United States to stay
with a relative.

Some journalists have left permanently; others wait for the
heat to die down and return, although they inevitably dial back their critical
reporting and commentary. The authorities are well aware of the flight option.
Chandana Sirimalwatte, chief editor of the Marxist weekly Lanka, said a
police officer told him while he was being questioned: “Look at this detention
as an opportunity. After this you can easily move to a European country.”

Sirimalwatte told the police he was staying put—even though
his office is under police surveillance, he has difficulty finding printers for
the paper, his distribution company has received anonymous threats, and his
newsprint supplier told him to find another company.

A senior Sri Lankan journalist working for a prominent
foreign news outlet said he understands why his colleagues are leaving. “Who
can guarantee the lives of these people? My company will look after me if
anything happens to me, but who will look after the Sri Lankans who do not have
support? When their lives are threatened, they have to leave,” said the
journalist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The backdrop to this fear is impunity. In April 2010, CPJ
ranked Sri Lanka as the fourth worst nation worldwide on its Impunity
Index, a list of countries where journalists are regularly murdered and
governments fail to solve the crimes. In February 2009, CPJ investigated what
one Sri Lankan journalist called a “spasm of violence” against the media in the
preceding month. The attacks, which included the murder of columnist Lasantha
Wickramatunga, were aimed at silencing critics on the home front during the
final assault on the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In its 2009
special report, "Failure
to Investigate," CPJ found a pattern of unpunished violence against the
media throughout Rajapaksa’s tenure.

The January 2009 cases remain unresolved, illustrating the government’s
continued inability or unwillingness to pursue justice in anti-press attacks.

Adding to the journalists’ sense of vulnerability is the
case of J.S. Tissainayagam, who was honored with CPJ’s International
Press Freedom Award last year. In August 2008, he was sentenced to
20 years in prison under Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act in connection
with two articles written nearly three years earlier in a now-defunct magazine,
North Eastern Monthly. His crime was documenting human rights abuses by
the military and the difficult conditions faced by those displaced in the war.

After a vigorous international campaign, Tissainayagam was
released on bail in January 2010 pending his appeal. Fearing for his safety,
living in self-imposed seclusion, and prohibited from leaving the country,
Tissainayagam served as an example to other journalists of what could happen to
them should they run afoul of the government. The country’s recently appointed
external affairs minister, G.L. Peiris, announced at a press conference on May
3, World Press Freedom Day, that Tissainayagam had been given a presidential
pardon. His security, though, remains a concern.

As a result of recurring violence and harassment,
self-censorship is rampant among the island’s highly partisan press, which
publishes in three languages, Sinhala, Tamil, and English. In the
pro-establishment media, many editors acknowledge self-censorship while
devoting their front pages and news-hour lead stories to extensive, positive
coverage of the government. Among the pro-opposition media, there is a pervasive
atmosphere of concern, if not outright fear, about the future of the country’s
media and their personal safety. Independent editors say they are reluctant to
run stories supportive of Fonseka, or that question the armed forces, military
procurement, or the political and business dealings of senior administration
officials.

“It used to be us Tamil journalists who had to be careful,”
said an editor at a Tamil-language newspaper who asked not to be identified for
his own safety. “Now our Sinhalese colleagues know what it is like.” Tamil
editors still exercise “supreme caution” in running stories critical of the
government, the army, or pro-government Tamils of the so-called Karuna faction,
a breakaway group of the LTTE in the east of the country. “We often get the
story first but we wait until it appears in the English papers before we
publish it [in Tamil],” the editor said.

With conflict over, government commits to 'normalcy'

Ethnic tensions between the country’s minority Tamils and
Sinhalese, coupled with a war that cost by U.N. estimates 100,000 lives, have
left their mark on the media, which are divided along sectarian as well as
political lines. But journalists say the intensity of the political battle
between Rajapaksa and Fonseka drove the media to new heights of partisanship,
and consequently has exposed some journalists to new dangers.

Prabath Sahabandu, editor-in-chief of the pro-government
daily The Island, accused some
journalists of professional misconduct. “Some journalists are very partisan,”
he told CPJ. “They are more politicians than journalists. And some Web sites, I
won’t call them journalism at all. They publish very scurrilous material. They
character-assassinate politicians. That doesn’t mean that the government has
the right to suppress the media and resort to strong-arm tactics. That is also
wrong. But we also have to turn the searchlight inwards and ask some critical
questions.”

The level of professionalism and training of journalists may
be an issue, but CPJ has concluded that it’s not the main problem in a country
where murder, forced disappearances, brutal physical assault, and exile mark
the media landscape. Western governments have long condemned Sri Lanka’s human
rights record and wartime conduct, prompting Colombo to look for less critical
partners. The government turned to Pakistan and China for arms to finish off
the Tamil rebellion; Iran is supplying oil and financing for a power station,
and China is building an airport and seaport.

But if Western countries’ ability to influence human rights
and press freedom has waned, the United States and the European Union still
constitute important markets for Sri Lankan exports, especially textiles. In
reviewing the island’s human rights record, the European Union has said it will
suspend preferential tariffs for Sri Lankan apparel imports in August unless
the Colombo government shows improvements in human rights, including freedom of
expression, EU officials said. The suspension of the Generalized System of
Preferences known as (GSP+) could deal a severe blow to the industry and
jeopardize up to 200,000 jobs, the officials said. The EU accounts for 35
percent of the Sri Lankan textile export market. So far the government has left
many of the EU concerns unaddressed and has sought to play down the economic
importance of the GSP+ to the country, Western officials said.

Nevertheless, Attorney General Mohan Peiris, in a lengthy
February interview with CPJ at his Colombo office, said the administration was
committed to the rule of law and was supportive of a free and responsible
press. “The government has a zero tolerance policy with regard to any kinds of
acts of violence perpetrated against journalists,” he said. Asked about Sri
Lanka’s culture of impunity, Peiris said nearly 30 years of war and terrorism
had brought its own imperatives.

“Now that things are back to normal, and terrorism is no
more, I think the time is right, and I am fairly sure the government has the
same view, that we should now put those structures back so that civil life
returns to normalcy as quickly as we can,” he said.

Peiris urged exiled journalists to return and said they were
needed to rebuild the country. When CPJ brought up the case of Tissainayagam
and asked whether he would be pardoned, Peiris responded: “If sufficient
contrition is shown on the part of Tissainayagam we can visit his case
generously, with something that might be worthy of being spoken of. And your
suggestion that we consider a pardon is something that we can seriously
consider. I can seriously tell you that. I will convey that sentiment to His
Excellency [President Rajapaksa] in due course.” The government would announce
the pardon more than two months later, although details, including possible
restrictions on Tissainayagam, were not disclosed.

Before leaving that February day, CPJ handed the attorney general
a short handwritten letter in Sinhala from Sandhya Eknelygoda asking for news
of her husband. She is still waiting for a response.

Bob Dietz is CPJ’s
Asia program coordinator. Robert Mahoney is CPJ’s deputy director.

CPJ's Recommendations

To the Sri Lankan
government:

Denounce threats. President Mahinda Rajapaksa should publicly and
forcefully denounce all threats and attacks against the news media, including
outlets that are critical of its policies. The president should honor the
constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression, and the country’s
international commitments by ensuring that independent and critical media can work
freely and without fear of reprisal.

Prosecute unsolved attacks on the press. The government should
establish an independent investigative unit to specifically address crimes
against freedom of expression. Authorities should further bring indictments and
win convictions in a series of anti-press attacks that have occurred over the
last decade. Sri Lanka’s record of impunity in press attacks ranks as one of
the worst in the world, CPJ research shows. Ten journalists have been murdered
over the last decade for their coverage of civil war, human rights, politics,
military affairs, and corruption. Not a single conviction has been obtained in
any of the cases.

Guarantee safe return. Provide explicit public guarantees to
protect journalists who return from forced exile. Allow the international
community and countries that have given safe haven to Sri Lankan journalists to
act as observers to ensure safe return.

Repeal punitive laws. The government should repeal the Prevention
of Terrorism Act of 1972, which was used to convict journalist J.S.
Tissainayagam, and the Official Secrets Act of 1956. Both are overly broad and
allow the government to intimidate and silence its critics.

Permanently disband press council. The government should abandon
plans to reactivate the Press Council, which has the power to impose financial
and prison penalties against journalists, and should move to permanently
disband this body.

To the United Nations:

Speak out. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should speak publicly and
directly to the Sri Lankan public about the government’s anti-media
policies.

To the international
community:

Actively engage. The diplomatic community must continue active
engagement with the Rajapaksa government. The United States and Norway are
vocal in support of journalists under attack in Sri Lanka. They should continue
their activities and enlist nations such as India and Japan, which have not
been sufficiently active, to join with them in presenting a united front in
support of press freedom. Each one of these countries should publicly express
its concern.

Use GSP+ as leverage: The EU should use the possible suspension of
preferential tariff benefits (known as GSP+) to extract meaningful guarantees
of media freedom from the government, including the prosecution of anti-press
attacks and the guaranteed safe return of exiled journalists. The suspension,
decided on in February, will take effect in August if Sri Lanka fails to take
the necessary measures to enact improvements in its human rights condition.

Improve quality. The international community should work to improve
the quality of journalism education and career training within Sri Lanka’s
existing institutions—the Sri Lanka College of Journalism at the Sri Lanka
Press Institute. Governments and international organizations should also offer
overseas training to all journalists across the political spectrum.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This report has been modified to reflect that it was published on May 19, 2010.

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